


Progression

by deathwailart



Category: Final Fantasy XIII
Genre: Backstory, Developing Relationship, F/F, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-20
Updated: 2011-08-20
Packaged: 2017-10-22 21:21:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/242724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How Fang and Vanille go from friends, to best friends and then to more</p>
            </blockquote>





	Progression

Vanille meets Fang when she has just turned six, Fang already eight. They might have met before; Oerba isn't _that_ big but if they have, neither girl remembers. All that matters is that Vanille is six with her hair in pretty pigtails and Fang is eight with that wild unkempt mane. Vanille thinks she's the kind of girl who escapes her mother and the hairbrush before she rushes out the door in the morning.

Vanille has been playing with one of her little robot toys her dad made for her, not really paying attention until some monster thing starts getting close to her. Vanille doesn't know what it's called and it shouldn't even be here in Oerba but it's here and it's advancing towards her and she scrambles back, loses her footing on a rock and falls to the ground with a thump. And then she bursts into tears because a horrible slug/flower monster thing is going to eat her and she's sure that's going to hurt.

But then a rock strikes the thing and a girl with a stick almost as big as she is charges up, her Sari falling off her shoulder as she runs.

"Hey! Leave 'er alone!" She gives the monster an almighty whack and then another and another until it slides off. Vanille's bottom lip trembles and the tears don't stop even though she's safe. She retrieves her robot though and takes the hand held out to her and lets this strange girl dust her off and straighten her clothes. "You alright?"  
  
"Y-yes," she sniffs, blinks her eyes and tries to smile because the stranger is smiling too, "thank you."  
  
"No worries," the girl grins, twirls her stick around her hand clumsily and thumbs her nose. "I'm Fang."  
  
"Vanille."  
  
"C'mon, we should go home before anything else pops up."

Vanille nods and heads off with Fang. They're officially friends after that day. Fang the tomboy to her girly-girl. Vanille the sprinkles and sparkles to Fang's gravel and grunts.

\---

Vanille and Fang aren't best friends, not officially because you both have to say things to make it official but they spend time around each other and they're very odd together, two year age gap notwithstanding but they don't care and Fang teaches Vanille how to fight. Hesitant, awkward but patient. Vanille is still a cry-baby and a scaredycat but Fang says that it's okay. Vanille is twelve now, Fang fourteen and they're sleeping over at Vanille's. Once upon a time they used to both share the bed but then Fang had a growth spurt and was all bones and knees and elbows and, to Fang's chagrin and Vanille's embarrassment and mild envy, breasts. So they sleep on the floor in sleeping bags and Bhakti trundles about.

"Fang..."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"We're friends, right?"  
  
"Course we are, what else would we be?"  
  
"I meant...are we best friends?"  
  
"What, you mean all that silly stuff with bracelets and whatnot?"  
  
"Yep!"

Fang grins in the darkness and rolls over from her back onto her side, mirroring Vanille who feels inexplicably nervous even though this is Fang who she's known for half her life now.

"Yeah, we're best friends Vanille. That's what it is when people look out for each other all the time."  
  
"I thought that was family."  
  
Fang squirms over so she can sling an arm around Vanille, sinewy muscle and hushed laughter. "Friends are family too, y'know."

Vanille laughs into Fang's neck and the next morning she gives her a pair of purple earrings made into the shape of claws because they suit Fang and because she doesn't wear all the bangles and beads that Vanille wears. Fang calls her soppy but the moment those earrings go in, she never takes them back out.

\---

When they're sixteen and eighteen respectively, Vanille decides to actually prove that she's not always such a scaredycat because she has things she has to tell Fang, now that she's old enough for this sort of thing. Because Fang is more than just her best friend or her family. She's loved Fang in many different ways even before she knew what love really was. She knows now though. She knows it's that tingle in the pit of her stomach when Fang laughs and smiles, the extra little skip in her step when she and Fang go somewhere together and Fang doesn't complain about Vanille linking their arms or holding her hand. It's a lot of other things too but Vanille doesn't have the words for those.

She doesn't really have the words now, as she and Fang sit up in Fang's room, legs dangling out the window and they're too big for this now but Vanille will never complain about being pressed so close to Fang.

"Fang," she says quietly, head resting on her shoulder, Fang's arm braced at her back.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"Have you ever...like-liked someone?"  
  
"You mean like a boyfriend?"  
  
"You've never had a boyfriend Fang," Vanille's nose wrinkles as she says it, not liking the idea of any of the boys in Oerba touching or kissing Fang like that. Although they're all too terrified of Fang half the time to look her in the eye. "I meant liking someone as more than just friends?"  
  
"Yeah," Fang's voice is quiet and husky and her gaze is at some faraway spot on the horizon, "yeah I have. I do."

Vanille's stomach and heart plummet as though she's fallen from Cocoon all the way down to Gran Pulse. She can feel the tears start to sting and she balls her hands in her lap, nails biting deep into the skin. She refuses to cry here.

"Hey," Fang gives her a nudge and leans down, right in Vanille's face, "what's wrong?"  
  
"Nothing."  
  
"Don't give me that, something's the matter. I'm your best friend Vanille, I'm your family, you can tell me."  
  
"I like you!"

It comes out in a loud and almost furious burst, something very few would ever think Vanille capable of but she is when she puts her mind to it and she has to tell Fang because it's going to eat her up from the inside out if she doesn't.

"You big dummy, any idea how long I've been waiting to hear you say that?"

Vanille has to catch herself before she falls out the window and she's sure they can see the brightness of her smile up there on Cocoon, all those miles up in the sky.

And when Fang leans in and finally – although to be fair to Fang, Vanille didn't know she wanted Fang to kiss her so badly until their lips were touching – kisses her, she does topple back onto the floor, Fang on top of her and they both lie there, staring in silence before they laugh and Vanille knows that no matter what the world may throw at them, they're going to be just fine, as long as it's the two of them together.


End file.
